


Project Overlord

by Kantayra



Category: Smallville
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-01
Updated: 2006-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:40:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark is suspicious when Lex is still failing at Evil Overlord 101, even at age 40...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Project Overlord

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Written for undermistletoe's holiday challenge. I got a day of Evil Overlordin' It Up, which meant that I had to violate rules from the [Evil Overlord List](http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html). Much fun. Thanks to txtequilanights who provided many a joke in this fic, often while looped up on cold medications. Extra big thanks to danceswithgary and romanyg who came in on short notice and did a bang-up beta job.

When most people turned forty, their friends threw them an ‘Over the Hill’ party and sent them humorous cards with bad jokes about aging.

When Lex Luthor turned forty, never one to follow the crowd, he promptly seceded from the U.S., aimed a death ray squarely at Washington DC demanding that the U.S. acknowledge his newly sovereign territory as the Independent Kingdom of Lexonia, and kidnapped Lana Lang in order to make her his queen.

There were times when Clark really hated his life.

The rest of the Justice League had fled in horror from the Watchtower the instant the story reached the command console, like rats deserting a sinking ship. The only exceptions were Bruce, who had really more ‘vanished into the shadows’ than _fled_ , J’onn, who had insisted most adamantly that he was needed in the Watchtower to monitor the global scanners, and Clark, who had known right from the beginning that he was _so_ stuck with this one. After all, he had been caught in the fallout when Lex turned thirty. That had involved blowing up a robotics lab larger than many small airports and then holding his arch-nemesis and patting him hesitantly on the back while Lex sobbed, in true Caesarian fashion, that _Alexander_ had already managed to conquer the known world when _he_ was thirty.

It had been the most awkward villain thwarting _ever_.

He’d had nightmares about it for months. Nightmares in which he was holding Lex, but this time Lex was _naked_ , and instead of sobbing, he was _kissing_ Clark, and…yeah. Obviously evil. He’d barely gotten any sleep for weeks afterwards due to the… _horror_. It had thrown him off his game enough that everyone had noticed. The whole JLA was sympathetic to the trauma involved with a crying Lex Luthor. Clark had kept the naked part to himself. Although he kind of suspected that J’onn had read his mind about that, because the Martian had been coughing pointedly ever since any time Clark and Lex got up in each other’s faces and started slinging death threats.

In any case, through a long and elaborate scheme of whining, he’d managed to convince the entire Justice League to run for it. He wondered if that was some kind of secret superpower he’d never known about before.

That meant Clark was left to resolve Lex’s latest mid-life crisis all on his lonesome. He was feeling just vindictive enough at the moment that, if Lex broke down in tears again, Clark was _so_ bringing him back to the Watchtower, security breach or no, and making _Bruce_ pet his head and say “there, there” like a complete idiot. It would be fitting revenge.

However, first he had to actually, you know, _thwart Lex_. That situation was made marginally more difficult by the fact that: 1) Lex had placed his capital ‘LexCity’ on an island off the East Coast, 2) Said island was riddled with Kryptonite, and 3) Lex had an army of killer robots, probably a leftover from his _last_ mid-life crisis, guarding the island.

Normally, Clark would’ve flown in, but he was feeling so woozy from the Kryptonite towers positioned on the five points of the island that he’d started losing altitude several hundred feet out. That, actually, turned out to be useful, as it helped him stumble upon an alternate means of entry.

Lex, like every previous supervillain before him and undoubtedly all others for years to come, had a secret underground entrance to his hideout. Clark discovered this after making his dive (completely planned, of course) into the Atlantic Ocean while suffering from the effects of Kryptonite radiation. Underwater, the effect was weaker. The towers didn’t seem to be targeting the water much at all, and it seemed the killer robots were only patrolling the air and not the sea. Clark had to deal with the fact that his suit was uncomfortable and clingy when it got wet, but overall it was better than fighting an army of evil robots while being shot at with Kryptonite lasers.

In fact, it didn’t seem that Lex had _any_ security for the secret, yet inevitable, underwater entrance. Clark happily swam in after a small submarine, which conveniently didn’t notice him when it opened the underground bomb bay doors that led to the docking bay. Clark clung to the side of the sub, and four of Lex’s goons disembarked and removed their precious cargo which – Clark’s x-ray vision revealed – consisted of boxes of festive floral arrangements for the upcoming nuptials. And also illegal chemical weapons. Apparently, transporting these two things in the same shipment didn’t seem like a category violation to Lex. Clark would have to harp on orderly villainy later, after he’d thwarted Lex, saved Lana, and suffered through whatever awkwardness would result from Lex’s latest hissy-fit.

The goons – in full black storm trooper gear and marching about in what Clark thought was a fairly silly way – finally completed unloading the wooden crates and took up positions at the computer consoles along the far side of the room. Clark peeked out of the water to make sure that they all had their backs to him and emerged from the water. His suit made a sort of squelching sound as he did so, but none of the goons seemed to notice. They probably couldn’t hear very well with their storm trooper helmets, Clark decided. He’d have to mention that later; Lex _really_ should know better by now.

It turned out that the stairs to the right led to the inside of one of those Kryptonite towers that had caused Clark to nosedive in the first place. They were conveniently backed with lead shielding, probably so that Lex’s goons wouldn’t all turn into maniacs with mutant powers. (See? Lex had learned _some_ lessons from his past mistakes.) It also meant that Clark was feeling pretty good, if not as chipper as he’d been when he’d woken up this morning and not yet realized that Lex was going to go megalomanic today.

The five towers surrounded the expanse of the island, which was walled off from water attack. Looking for all the world like a prison yard, spotlights and troops of guards regularly swept by. If Bruce had been there, he would have been able to calculate the precise timing and intervals and figured out the exact moment and stages in which they could cross the yard undetected, probably using the computer in the back of his glove and some new super stealth technology. However, Clark _wasn’t_ Bruce, so he just skipped that part and flew into the main complex faster than the human eye could see in less than a microsecond. Ha! Take _that_ , Bruce!

Inside was a long metal corridor, with a security camera at one end and a series of recesses in the walls, armed with machine guns loaded with (undoubtedly) Kryptonite bullets. This one was a no-brainer. Clark took out the security camera at the end of the hallway with his heat vision and then shook his head in disbelief when the weapons system didn’t activate. Usually, Lex didn’t make mistakes like this; he ran a corporation that manufactured military defense systems, for crying out loud!

The door at the end of the hall had a number pad on it. Clark shifted uncomfortably in his wet costume. He frowned at the panel and calculated whether he should just bust through when, suddenly, a lone storm trooper, obviously sent to check on the camera, opened it. Clark tapped him on the top of his clunky helmet with the tip of his pinky finger, and the storm trooper was out like a light.

Well, that was…easy…

Clark glanced down the corridor beyond. No more goons, no more guns. He was starting to get a very strange feeling. There was something not quite right about this. Lex was a genius, deranged megalomaniac though he might be. He just didn’t make this many stupid mistakes, not all in the same scheme…

If Clark had been Bruce, he probably would’ve thought up some brilliant insight into Lex’s psyche to explain all this, but he wasn’t, so he just headed for the guardroom at the end of the hall. A second storm trooper was inside, his back to the door as he talked frantically into his communicator, probably trying to find out what had happened to the _first_ storm trooper. Clark gave him the pinky treatment too. Now they were a matching set!

The guardroom, Clark was disappointed to discover, did _not_ have a big red button that announced ‘click here to destroy the giant death ray pointed at DC.’ Rather, the computer screen before him demanded a _password_ of all things. Clark let out a gurgle of annoyance and tried to x-ray down the hallway to find out where on earth Lex and Lana were. Lead, of course. Clark let out a louder, more pathetic gurgle. He debated, for a very long moment, the merits of just smashing through every wall in the whole place. There was a kind of simplistic charm to that plan, but Lana and Lex and many misguided storm troopers could end up extremely squashed by the falling building if he tried that. Computer, it was. Clark cursed Bruce for not coming with him, the big wuss.

The goon at his feet probably had a user ID, but he was unconscious and probably wouldn’t be waking up very soon. That meant that Clark knew exactly _one_ ID that was _guaranteed_ to be in the system. Lex was never anything but LEXLUTHOR. Clark could _try_ Mercy, but Mercy used a wide variety of IDs, including MGraves, Mercy, MercyG, MercyGraves, and once – to his complete and utter befuddlement – MG.Security. His e-mail had bounced back and forth for a good four hours before he’d finally figured out that last one. Those were four long hours that he’d had to put up with Lex waving about a polarized neutrino blaster in the middle of the Metropolis Planetarium until Mercy finally came to pick him up. It hadn’t been so bad once they’d started up a good game of twenty-questions, but before that it had been hell.

Long story short, Clark was trying to guess Lex Luthor’s password. There was a reason people called him ‘Superman.’

‘ID: LEXLUTHOR PASSWORD: JULIAN’ was the first thing he tried. No luck. Hey, Lex was improving! That was always encouraging. Lillian, Lana, Clark, the birthdays of all the aforementioned people, and ‘purple’ yielded nothing either. Clark was downright stymied and his costume was starting to ride up in a thoroughly nasty way from sitting wet in the desk chair before he remembered that Lex was in the middle of a mid-life crisis, and all mid-life crises since ancient times stemmed back to one person.

Clark typed in ‘AlexandertheGreat.’ Bingo.

The more things changed, the more Lex stayed the same, it seemed. Clark banged his forehead on the desk once, just for good measure. Really, Lex was _forty_ ; he should know better by now! The desk crumbled where Clark’s head impacted and, instinctively, he put on his most innocent expression and looked around furtively. Of course, there was no one there to see him and, even if they did, he was dressed up as Superman so it was okay. Just to be fair, Clark reminded himself that he was _thirty-four_ , and he should really know better by now too. Clearly, they were both just hopeless.

The computer console was, as most computer consoles are wont to be, a veritable fount of useful information. For example, Clark found out that the two storm troopers he’d pinkied were named Bob and George, and that Bob had a sizable porn collection. Lex also knew about Bob’s sizable porn collection, since he’d been covertly downloading certain of the files to his own computer. Bob hadn’t known this, of course; that was the advantage to using the master account. Clark had discovered all this when he’d noticed the file transfers on a completely innocuous page that _seemed_ to indicate that the aforementioned files were vital to Lex’s scheme, given the excessive bandwidth used to procure them. The seemingly harmless filename B2c8393.wmv had provided no warning whatsoever.

Clueless, Clark had opened the file.

Almost instantly, he’d been assaulted by the image of a very pretty young man with a buzz cut and shocking blue eyes lowering his mouth around another man’s cock and sucking his cheeks in _hard_.

Clark let out what was probably an unholy super shriek and flailed about helplessly with the mouse for several seconds before he finally managed to shut the thing off. Those few seconds were more than enough for the images on the screen to be seared into his memory permanently.

And the worst part was that, what with the buzz cut and all, it wasn’t that hard for Clark to picture that guy as bald – as _Lex_ – with those mischievous blue eyes and lop-sided smile as he wrapped his lips around Clark’s—

Okay! Moving along, then!

Clark frantically returned to the task at hand, pointedly _not_ thinking about all the times he’d watched Lex swallow, his lips sucking hard on a bottle of Ty Nant, back when he was a teenager. Nope, not remembering anything about that at all. The entire reason he couldn’t stop shifting in his seat was due to the drenched costume. Obviously.

Now that his purpose was clear, he quickly found the fortress schematic. This was where supermemory came into play.

Now, Clark and Lex had an ongoing heated debate that had started seven years ago on the Moon right after Clark had trashed Lex’s very short-lived Lunar Tidal Disruptor. The gist of the argument was this: Lex insisted that supermemory wasn’t a _real_ superpower since Lex himself had a photographic memory. Clark insisted that Lex could also heal broken bones in a matter of days, had somehow managed to acquire _hand cancer_ which Clark was still pretty sure didn’t actually exist, and could sit through three-hour lectures about dead Greek guys without falling into a debilitating comatose state due to extreme boredom. That last one even _Clark_ couldn’t manage. Hence, just because Lex could do something didn’t mean it wasn’t a superpower. From there, the argument had disintegrated into both of them reciting off the digits of pi until Diana, who’d had the misfortune of being along for the ride, had finally shut them both up. Painfully.

The argument had persisted over the years, and they’d even had a brief war over it back in ’16, which had involved lasers and robots on Lex’s part and a very liberal use of heat vision on Clark’s part. Greenland would never be the same.

So, naturally, as Clark used the map now in his head to zip through the corridors at lightning-speed and burst into Lex’s main control room, he announced victoriously, “ _Told you_ I have supermemory!”

Lex’s left eye twitched. He was standing atop a metal walkway about twenty feet up, surrounded by computer consoles, a giant rocket that Clark knew from extensive x-raying wasn’t actually a reflection of any deficiency in the Luthor family jewels (although one might reasonably draw that conclusion given Lex’s fascination with large phallic objects), Lana Lang tied to a chair, and – as always – Mercy. This time Lex had her in some skintight leather outfit with the Lexonia flag emblazoned over what looked for all the world like a Brunhilda breastplate. She looked as close to mutinous as Clark had ever seen her. Given the get-up, he really couldn’t blame her. Lex’s black-and-violet garb, which looked like a Roman emperor had gotten dressed drunkenly, wasn’t much better.

Lex looked down at Clark from atop his metal tower and very precisely announced, “There is _no such thing_ —!”

Mercy cut him off, before his rant could _really_ get started. “T minus sixty seconds.”

Mercy was sick of the Great Supermemory Debate too, it seemed. The last time Clark and Lex had gotten into it, she’d actually dragged Lex forcibly from the room, while GL and J’onn had given Clark the same treatment in the other direction. Thankfully, her diversion worked.

Lex turned from Clark, and his lips twitched into an evil little smile. “Targeting sensors are locked?”

“Yes, sir. T minus fifty seconds.”

Lex graced Clark with his smirk. “It seems you’re too late this time, Superman,” he said, somewhat bafflingly because Mercy had just _said_ that Clark had fifty seconds left. “Soon, Washington will be de—”

Clark flew up to the platform in the blink of an eye, untied Lana in the next, slammed his hand into the giant red ABORT button in the third (See? There _always_ was one…), ripped the giant rocket in two in the fourth, goosed Lex in the fifth, and picked up Lana and flew back down to safety in the sixth.

“—stroyed,” Lex concluded with a bit of a yelp at the end, peering back at his ass to see what the trouble was. Then he blinked and noticed that Lana was suddenly free with Clark and that his superweapon was destroyed. “Oh, damn,” he muttered petulantly, with about the same amount of concern one might have after stubbing a toe.

Clark got that weird feeling again, like he was _missing_ something, something really important and vital. He x-rayed about frantically, trying to figure out if it was a trap, but he didn’t _see_ anything too obvious.

Next to him, Lana gave him an annoyed glare and pointedly removed his hand from her arm. He let go sheepishly before he realized that, wait, _that_ wasn’t quite right, either. He’d just saved Lana! So why did she look so annoyed?

“What’s going on, Luthor?” he demanded in full, booming, superhero voice.

“I’m going to kill you and conquer the world, of course,” Lex offered blandly. He gestured to Mercy, who promptly pulled a Kryptonite laser from _somewhere_ in that tight black outfit and aimed it straight at his heart.

Clark ducked.

Mercy fired.

Lana yawned.

Lex ran for the roof.

Clark spent the next few minutes hiding behind various strategically placed crates before he finally fully registered that last fact. Uh-oh, it wasn’t good. Supervillains ran for the roof for exactly two reasons: either they were defeated and making a mad dash for freedom, or they had some diabolical plan set in place above that would destroy half the planet. Given that Mercy currently had Clark pinned behind a large box of crystal glassware, Clark was inclined to lean toward the latter option.

Unfortunately, the Kryptonite in Mercy’s gun was making him woozy. It must have had some sort of lead safety on when he first entered the room, because now that the safety was off, he was almost entirely debilitated. All he needed was a few seconds to fly after Lex. Knowing Mercy, he wouldn’t be given them.

There was only one, horribly embarrassing thing to do. Clark managed to half stumble, half crawl between two more crates just as Mercy rounded the corner, gun poised, so that he was safely hidden from view once more. Then he cried out piteously, “Laaaaana!” In addition, his costume was starting to chafe badly. It just wasn’t a good day.

Almost instantly, he heard some scuffling sounds around the corner. Really, Lana shouldn’t have been able to defeat Mercy, except for the fact that Mercy was very likely to forget the fact that Lana even existed, allowing Lana to do…something.

Whatever happened, it worked. Clark felt a break in the Kryptonite radiation and he took the few seconds granted him to take off for the roof.

Back in the warehouse, Mercy yawned and re-holstered her weapon.

Lana squinted up after Clark incredulously. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”

Mercy just shrugged. “You should’ve seen them in the Mariana Trench with the mechanical squid,” she retorted. “Now _that_ was unbelievable…”

Clark, meanwhile, was feeling sort of guilty for leaving Lana to Mercy’s sarcastic, well… _mercies_. Even more, he was worried about why Lex was running up the spiral staircase around the high, black tower that stood at the exact center of the island.

“Give it up, Luthor!” he shouted, easily flying to catch up with Lex.

In response, Lex stopped, grabbed something out of his pocket, and Clark felt yet _another_ sharp pang. This Kryptonite thing? Was getting old and _fast_.

Luckily, Clark crash-landed on the staircase about ten steps above Lex.

Lex approached him, holding the meteor rock delicately between the index finger and thumb of his artificial right hand. “Did you honestly think you could defeat me?” he asked calmly, almost conversationally, all but sauntering up the last few steps, until he was towering over Clark’s supine form. “Project Overlord was flawless, Kal-El. I calculated every detail to perfection, planned for every contingency.” He crouched down beside Clark so that they were eye-to-eye on the open stairwell. “You never really got chess, did you?” he sighed indulgently.

Clark tried to laugh, but it came out more as a cough. “Flawless?” he repeated in disbelief. “Lex, you did _everything_ wrong!”

Lex raised one eyebrow in a perfect ‘oh’ expression.

“You left your back door wide open, your security’s a joke, your weapon is destroyed, and—” Clark paused dramatically, something he’d come to appreciate aesthetically over the years, probably due to far too many encounters with Lex, “—your victory hinges entirely on me not doing _this_.”

With one shaking arm, Clark reached out with very ordinary human speed and batted at Lex’s right hand. A slap, a fumble, and the hunk of Kryptonite slipped from Lex’s grasp, bounced off three stairs, and then went right over the edge. The pair of them watched it, almost mesmerized as it fell down and down and down and…

Lex let out a little yelp when Clark, instantly recovered, caught him up and took to the air. One could never be too careful with Lex: he could always have more Kryptonite secreted on his person, or a rocket in his pocket (er, literally, that was; Clark already knew that he did metaphorically). Once Clark was satisfied that, if Lex wanted to try to kill him, he’d have to kill them _both_ , he came to a stop in mid-air and let out a disappointed sigh.

“Haven’t you learned by now _never_ to pontificate about your plans?” Clark chided him with a shake of his head. “It’s _always_ self-defeating.”

Lex, arms loosely slung about Clark’s neck, still managed to shrug nonchalantly. “Who said I was defeated?”

Clark rolled his eyes so hard that, if his mother were there, she’d warn him that they could get stuck that way. “You’re not going to take over the world, Lex. Give it up. Seriously.”

Something sparkled in the depths of Lex’s eyes, and his lips quirked slightly. “Maybe I don’t want to take over the world,” he retorted coyly.

Clark snorted in disbelief.

“Oh, fine!” Lex conceded. “But I can certainly tell you that Project Overlord’s intent was never world domination.”

Clark gulped. This was going to be _bad_. “You’re not going to start crying again, are you?” he all but whimpered.

“I’m forty years old, Clark.” Clark looked up sharply in realization that – holy shit! – Lex actually knew who he was, but Lex didn’t give him time to process this fact. “If I have a normal human lifespan, more than half my life is already over.”

“I…” Clark felt something tight in his chest at the thought. It had never really occurred to him that Lex could _die_ someday. It was so easy to think that God and Age wouldn’t even dare to touch Lex Luthor.

“And, really,” Lex concluded in a smooth and even voice, “it’s almost ridiculous how long I’ve lived alone, when the companionship I craved was just out of reach. Only my own ego held me back from at least _trying_.”

Clark groaned. “This is all about _Lana_?” he repeated in disbelief. In a way, it was karma. How many times had Lex or Pete or Chloe or even – on one memorable occasion – his dad said those exact words to him when he’d been back in high school.

Lex seemed to detect the irony as well and chuckled softly. “Oh, Clark,” he sighed wistfully. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

And then his grip tightened, and suddenly he was kissing Clark _hard_.

Clark let out a surprised squeal, which Lex used to thrust his tongue deep into Clark’s mouth. He flailed about, arms flapping helplessly in the air, but Lex had a death-grip around his neck and had wrapped his legs very tightly around Clark’s waist fortunately, because he was flying and Lex could plummet to his death which Clark had totally forgotten in that moment due to the fact that _Lex Luthor was kissing him!_

The panic subsided slightly once Clark finally put words to what was happening, and he repeated the thought again: _Lex Luthor is kissing me._

And, then, with an audible moan: _Oh, God! Lex Luthor is kissing me…and it’s better than all my fantasies put together._

Clark’s hands returned to Lex’s back tentatively, and his own lips began moving, starving now, desperate for Lex’s taste.

“The tower,” Lex gasped, breaking their kiss long enough to take a deep breath and then dive back in, aiming for Clark’s throat this time.

“Why?” Clark asked, still managing to be wary despite the fact that he had the world’s most eligible (and sexiest, to Clark’s mind) bachelor wrapped around his body like a second spandex suit.

“Bed,” Lex’s teeth bit into Clark’s collarbone.

It was a convincing argument. Clark barely managed to land them in the top tower room that was furnished like a bedroom straight out of Arabian Nights…crossed with a plum. Everything was purple: the curtains, the carpet, the bed canopy, the pillows, the silk sheets. And, Clark learned as he took a good long x-ray look, also Lex’s underwear.

“You were running for the _bed_?” Clark asked in disbelief.

Lex’s hands found the fastenings for his cape and undid them. “Your costume’s all wet. It must be uncomfortable…”

“Only because of _your_ stupid underwater entrance,” Clark insisted.

Lex hummed to himself thoughtfully and set upon removing Clark’s belt. “This must also be uncomfortable…” His palm cupped the bulge between Clark’s legs that had never really gone away after he’d opened that file earlier.

In fact…

“Wait a minute,” Clark breathed. “You planned that too, the water, to drench my suit. A-And the video! You made _sure_ it would look suspicious, so I would open it.”

“What ever do you mean?” Lex asked, eyelashes fluttering with the worst faux-innocence Clark had ever seen.

“B2c8393.wmv,” Clark insisted. “And see? Supermemory.”

“Mmm, that’s a good one.” Lex had Clark’s costume off now and dropped to his knees. “Do you want to try that?” A pause. “Also, there’s no such thing as supermemory.”

“Leeeeeeeeeex,” Clark whined. “We shouldn’t. Your goons will be here any minute, and then the Justice League… Oh, fuck!” He cried out when Lex’s lips closed around him. “Also,” he breathed heavily, “supermemory _does so_ exist.”

“My goons,” Lex’s mouth stopped torturing Clark long enough to get the words out, his hand stroking Clark instead, “are under strict orders not to come up here. As for the Justice League, I made sure this scheme was so atrociously over-the-top that they’d all stay as far away as they could. After all,” Lex breathed against the head of Clark’s cock, sending little frissons of pleasure down the shaft, “this is between _us_.” His lips surrounded Clark’s head once again, and Clark let out an exclamation of anguish when Lex suddenly pulled back again. “And you do _not_ have supermemory. I can remember that filename just as clearly. B0093kkr.wmv was the one right before it, and A882b.wmv before that.” With that, Lex promptly returned to sucking Clark’s cock.

Clark stumbled backwards and tripped over the bed, ending up splayed back against rich damson silk. Lex gave him a predatory smile and slowly shrugged at the robe he was wearing, and it all slipped off in one smooth, perfect motion.

“That outfit was ridiculous,” Clark insisted, voice sounding husky despite his best efforts. “And there was also D2F.avi, G.wmv, L444b19-dot… Oh, _God_!”

“The outfit,” Lex informed him primly, his hand wrapped around Clark’s cock and tugging rhythmically, “was designed for easy removal. And it’s a pity you didn’t get to watch L444b19.wmv.” His eyes raked up and down Clark’s body. “Because I think I’d like to try that one right now…” His hands moved to Clark’s knees, spreading them wider.

“L-Lex…” Clark gasped. “Wait!”

Lex paused, head cocked slightly to one side as he stared intently into Clark’s eyes. “Ah,” he concluded, “the morals thing. Took you long enough to come to that objection.”

Clark nodded vigorously in affirmation of that objection.

“I told you, Clark,” Lex insisted, crawling up his body so that their naked chests were pressed together in an impossibly tantalizing way. Lex’s lips were only inches from his now. “I planned for _everything_.”

“How…?”

“Think about it. I lured you here in such a way that you, and you alone, would come. I made sure my fortress was defended enough to keep your interest, but not so much that you’d have any difficulty reaching me. I ensured that you’d be aroused and itchy in your clothing. I kidnapped Lana Lang to remind you of the old days back in Smallville. Then, I manipulated you perfectly to get the two of us alone. And I have an entire large-scale wedding all set up downstairs.”

Clark’s eyes widened in astonishment at that last one.

“Did you really think,” Lex concluded, “that I would be so short-sighted as to neglect to legalize gay marriage in Lexonia?”

There really was nothing to say to that, except to kiss Lex _hard_.

***

“I think it’s going to be a while,” Lana finally stated the obvious about twenty minutes later.

Mercy snorted in agreement. “He’ll call when he’s good and ready for the wedding.” With a stretch and a groan, she pushed off the wall she’d been leaning against. “I’m going to watch TV while I wait.”

Lana took that as an invitation. “What’s on?”

Mercy tensed up, suddenly suspicious. “The O.C. DVDs?” she offered warily, ready to kill should this not be acceptable.

Lana’s eyes widened. “Do you have season four?”

Mercy’s expression broke into a brilliant smile, not seen by anyone since, well… _ever_. “Ryan and Taylor?”

“Of course!” Lana agreed.

Mercy offered her arm, and Lana took it. “This,” she announced, “looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”

***

Up in the tower, Clark had similar sentiments. Only with a lot more lube.

  
THE END.


End file.
